What a Sad Evening Taught Me as Someone in Depression Recovery

It’s 3:45 a.m and I feel sad. I’ve been crying, my heart feels heavy and I just feel sad. I don’t really know why, but I’ve never been very in tune with my emotions. Anyway, that’s not the point of me writing this.

I am sitting, crying, but also sitting in amazement, because this feels weird. Feeling sad doesn’t feel normal. And it surprised me.

It was only a few months ago that I didn’t think I’d be able to finish my university course because my attendance was so bad. I was having panic attacks and severe anxiety. I spent most of every day in bed. I was missing out on things I normally love because I was so anxious.

Looking further back, there were better periods and worse periods, but still in the better periods, I was clinically depressed. Being sad was my every day. Self-harming or feeling suicidal was my bad day.

I think back to my worst times, when I sat in my room, crying, day in and day out. Self-harming every day, suicidal every day. Daily visits from the crisis team and regular trips to hospital. I don’t remember much of that period (and really I’m grateful I don’t) but it seems so alien to me that I was that ill.

Now, it’s unfathomable to me to think how I got to that point. But I did. And at that time, it was unfathomable to think about being better.

I have no illusions about my mental health. I am aware this is something I will have to cope with for many years, if not forever. I’m still on medication and under the care of a psychiatrist. But for the first time in nearly five years, I am not in regular therapy — a decision my psychologist and I made together. I don’t feel “out of control,” that “I can’t cope in the real world” or that “my emotions control me” — things I have regularly said to my psychiatrist in the past.

It’s hard to explain, but my emotions have always been so intense — even good emotions. Although I don’t feel on top of the world at the moment, I know I won’t come crashing back down in a split second. And that’s mind blowing to me.